Cellar of Solitude

I had the creepiest dream last night! It was so good and so scary that I decided to turn it into a short story. Some elements have been added to make it a good story, but I lived through most of it in my dream. So I guess you could say that it is based on a true story because I actually experienced it. Here it is.


Cellar of Solitude

It was a dark and stormy night. I know, that is really cliché, but it was. It was the darkest and stormiest night of my life.

I used to be a firefighter, and the weird twenty-four-hour shifts would always throw off my schedule. So when I took a week of vacation last summer, I spent many nights without sleep. One night was particularly bad and I wasn’t tired at all, so I decided to go on a walk.

I put on my shoes and jacket and I and headed outside. As I walked up the hill and away from the streetlights it got darker and darker, so I turned on my flashlight. I let the beam play lazily along the deserted sidewalk as I trudged to the top.

When I got to the crest of the hill, I looked to my right. I was near the old forest that was scheduled for development, but it had been that way for five years. It didn’t seem like anything would be built there anytime soon. My friend worked for the developers, and they had heard some weird things about the forest – that it was haunted or something. I didn’t believe it at all, which was my first mistake.

For some reason, I decided to walk into the forest. After stumbling around for a while, I found a house. It was really old, and kind of creepy. The outside was covered with moss and gargoyles, and the front door was big and heavy with a large brass knocker on it.
I decided to go inside. I have no idea why I did. Maybe I was just curious. Maybe I had something I needed to prove. Or maybe it was fate – drawing me in to my destiny.

I opened the door and entered the house. It had no electricity – it was built long before that – so I relied on my flashlight to see. It seemed like any ordinary old house. There were paintings on the wall, lots of antique furniture, and a large staircase going upstairs. But something didn’t feel quite right. I was unsettled from the very moment I walked in the door.

I looked through most of the rooms on the main floor and found some really interesting things. Someone could make a lot of money selling all the stuff. It felt like I had jumped into the past, and the only thing disturbing the illusion was my flashlight.

I was getting kind of hungry, so I decided to look in the basement for some food. I knew that there wouldn’t be any fresh food safe to eat, but I just wanted to see if there was anything. As I walked down the stairs I noticed that the basement was very dark. The moonlight that faintly bathed everything outside with light was no longer present. It was pitch black.

The basement was filled with stacks of office supplies, food and bottled water. It all looked new and very out of place. Curiosity spurred me on.

As I reached the middle of the room, my flashlight beam fell on a body lying on the ground. I halted. I wanted to scream, but I was in too much shock. For what seemed like an eternity, I couldn’t move at all. Then, after a few seconds (it felt like days), the body’s eyes opened.

“Could you point that thing somewhere else?” It was a woman’s voice, and it sounded like it hadn’t been used in a while. I must have looked dumbfounded because she said, “Your flashlight. It’s hurting my eyes. After so long in the dark they don’t work too well anymore.”

“Wh-Who are you?” I finally managed to speak, although shakily. I pointed the flashlight behind me at the opposite side of the room. She was still grimacing though, as if the residual light in the room caused her physical pain.

“My name is Teresa. My great-grandmother used to own this place. They’re all dead now, so I guess I’ve inherited it.” She was young and beautiful, although her clothes were tattered and dirty. It didn’t seem like she was going to volunteer any more information, and I was really curious as to why she was in the basement.

“Why are you down here?” I asked.

“I can’t leave. I can’t ever leave,” she said with a wicked grin.

“What! Why not? Are you too depressed to live and are spending your last days here before you kill yourself?”

“Ha! No, nothing like that. You see, there’s something else down here. He doesn’t want me to leave.”

“This is idiotic.” I seriously thought that she was crazy. But I soon saw how wrong I was. “Do whatever you like, but I’m out of here.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” she said in a playful tone. I didn’t listen. I turned around and started back towards the staircase. I was starting to get really spooked, and I was ready to leave that house behind me forever.

Suddenly, I saw a flash of motion and then my flashlight winked out. The room was plunged into total darkness. I thought I heard Teresa chuckling behind me, and I wanted to turn around and tell her to stop, but before I could something hit me hard in the back of the head. I could feel myself falling forward, and then a crunch as my face hit the floor. Then there was nothing.

*____ * ____*

I awoke to excruciating pain. My face felt like it had been pressed against a meat grinder. I reached my hand up towards my face to feel what was left, but I felt another hand grab mine.

“Don’t touch it. You’re nose is broken, but I wrapped it up. I’m glad you’re awake.”

“How did you–“

“–wrap it in the dark? I’ve been down here a while. I’ve learned how to get by without my eyes.” I sat up. I couldn’t see anything. A very dark, choking presence seemed to fill the room. I shivered, even though it wasn’t cold.

“How do you survive down here?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of food. He brings everything I need as long as I stay here, well except for a flashlight. Yours broke when you fell. We could have used that. Oh well.” She paused. “I have lots of time to think down here, so I pass the time by writing. I’ve filled books and books with everything I think. Maybe they’ll be discovered someday. They’re probably impossible to read though. I can’t tell.”

“You’re very odd.” I said.

“I know.”

We sat there in silence for a few minutes. We both had so much we wanted to ask each other. Teresa hadn’t talked to anyone in a very long time, and I was scared to death, but we didn’t know where to start.

“I guess I never introduced myself.” I finally said. “My name is John.”

“Hello John,” she said cheerfully. “John. John. It rolls of the tongue quite easily. Sounds very exotic – kind of has a certain…zest to it.”

“Are you making fun of my name?” I asked, incredulous that anyone could be joking at such a perilous time.

“Well, yeah,” she said sheepishly. “I have to stay positive somehow, or else I’ll go insane.”

“Have you ever tried to escape before?”

“Of course. Nineteen times to be exact. And every time ended just like your attempt did. After a while, I got tired of all the broken bones. I finally realized that I couldn’t escape without some new factor in play.”

“Like me?”

“If you’re up to it. I would understand if you wanted to sit here and rot for the rest of your life. It’s perfectly normal.”

“Of course not!” The situation seemed hopeless, but maybe, just maybe there was a way out. “I want to escape, but how?”

“Teamwork, planning, and this!” she exclaimed triumphantly.

“What is it? I can’t see anything.”

“Oh yeah. It’s a glowstick. He can’t turn it off like he can turn off a flashlight. He doesn’t like to be seen, so with two of us we might be able to escape. I’ve been saving this for a long time. It’s our only chance.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“It will, if we work together. Are you ready?”

“What about the planning part?”

“I have a plan,” she said confidently. I definitely was not ready, but I trusted Teresa. If anyone could get us out, she could. She activated the glowstick and the room filled with a meager light. “Here, take my hands,” she said. We stood facing each other, hands held tightly with the glowstick in our grasp. We watched over each other’s shoulders for any movement, but we could see none.

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

“To make it up as we go along! Isn’t this fun?”

“What kind of plan is that?” I could feel something starting to stir in the air around me.

“You feel that?” she asked. “He’s getting angry. It’s time to move!” We shuffled as fast as we could to the stairs, always looking past each other. I felt more and more desperate as we quickened our pace.

We made it to the stairs without an incident. I took the glowstick and faced backwards while Teresa started up the stairs. I began to back up the stairs after her, when I felt the glowstick wrenched from my grasp. The room plunged into darkness and an arm grabbed my neck. It started pulling me back into the room. I feared I would be lost forever.

Then I heard Teresa scream, “No you don’t, you slimy monster!” She started hitting it and kicking it, and the grip on my neck was slackened. I broke free and started running up the stairs.

About halfway up, I realized that Teresa wasn’t following me. I turned around and shouted her name. In a slightly muffled scream, she shouted, “Go! There’s nothing you can do! Save yourself!”

In that moment, I was faced with a tremendous decision. I had to get out of there, but I also had to save Teresa. I had so much pressure pushing on me from both ways that the strain was almost too much for me. I knew that I had to make a decision right away, or my decision would be made for me. So I made a choice. I made a choice that I would regret for the rest of my life.

I ran.

*____ *____ *

Someone found me hours later collapsed by the side of the road. An ambulance came and took me to the hospital. I was fixed up quickly and returned home. When anyone asked me what had happened, I just said that I had tripped on a tree root. It was a lame excuse, but no one would believe the truth.

I went looking for the house in the forest several times at daytime, and even once at night, and I could never find it. It was like it didn’t exist. As the weeks went by, the experience seemed to fade away like a dream. My doubts increased and I started to believe that it had never happened. It became forgotten under the load of cares and worries that filled my life.

But every now and then, I will wake up in the middle of the night and feel someone calling me from far away. I will remember the forest, the house and its beast. I will remember that fateful night and the horrors it held. And most of all, I will remember Teresa and her brilliant spirit.

I’m so sorry Teresa.

efy

This last week I went to efy. It was the best experience of my life! I am now so much stronger socially and spiritually. Marshall McDonald was a teacher there, and he played some amazing music on the piano, including If You Could Hie to Kolob. Singing with it made me cry. The dances were awesome, and I made tons of new friends.

I enjoyed efy so much that I wrote a poem about it. Here it is.

Ode to efy

In the darkest deepest night that fills all that I can see,
I am lost and confused as to who I want to be.
But then I see a light that fills the earth and sky.
It's the light that tells us who we are, it's efy!

Together we are strong. Together we are free.
efy's the light that tells us who to be.

25 Things I Never Want To Do If Sent Back In Time

1. Meet Genghis Khan.
2. Meet Vlad the Impaler.
3. Send a time-release letter to my friends explaining my absence.
4. Become my own great-great-grandfather.
5. Accidentally kill my great-great-grandfather.
6. Have to live without an iPod.
7. Die before I was born (like PDQ Bach).
8. Get burned at the stake.
9. Lose my glasses.
10. Get made fun of for being too tall (Kind of like Abe Lincoln. Maybe he's a time traveler too.).
11. Accidentally shoot the first shot of the Revolutionary War.
12. Have to go without pizza.
13. Get leprosy.
14. Find out that every generation of humans is dumber than the last and that everyone in the past is smarter than me.
15. Get hanged for believing that the earth goes around the sun.
16. Discover that the earth actually was the center of the universe until just recently.
17. Find out that there is a time travel police when they give me a million dollar fine for time law infringement.
18. Try to reinvent electricity but realize that I know nothing about it.
19. Get squashed by a T-Rex.
20. Become a 3.2 million year old fossil and get displayed in a museum.
21. Be the only English speaker on the planet.
22. Have to wear a toga.
23. Find out that Merlin was real when he turns me into into a newt.
24. Find out that the pyramids were built as landing pads for alien spaceships.
25. Meet the Doctor only to have him leave me behind.

A Spark of Creativity

I had to write a short story for my English class. It turned out quite well, so here it is.

A Post-Preemptive Strike

“Mr. President, something must be done immediately.”

In a small conference room in the White House, the President of the United States of America was meeting with his chief military advisor, the head general of the army. They sat on opposite sides of a table. No one else was in the room and the door was locked.

“You’re right,” said the President. “The day we have dreaded for all these years has finally come. It’s time to activate Project Lincoln.”

“Mr. President, that would only make matters worse. Russia has spies among us, and they will know if we try something. The consequences of a hasty action would be disastrous.”

The President exhaled heavily. “You’re right, but doing nothing could be just as devastating. Just one of those bombs could turn the entire state of California into a crater.”

Suddenly, a ball of light appeared in the front of the room, hovering about three feet above the ground. It grew larger and brighter until it filled the room with light. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it vanished, leaving a man in its place.

“Greetings,” said the man. His sudden appearance left the President at a loss for words. Not only was it unexpected, his fashion sense looked like it was from a different time. He wore a leather jacket that was died with orange and green stripes, and he wore mouthwash-blue plastic pants. His hair stuck up in every direction, as if he had been struck by lightning.

“What’s wrong?” he said with a hint of arrogance. “And why are your clothes so drab? No color, no spice – they’re just boring.”

The general recovered enough to say, “Who are you?”

“I come from 100 years into your future. I discovered time travel, and now I’ve come back in time to fix everything.”

“What? Give us your name. Let me see some ID.”

“Tsk tsk. I can’t give you too much information. That could rip a hole in the fabric of space-time. We wouldn’t want that now would we?”

The general walked over to press the panic button to call in the secret service. “Wait a moment general,” said the President. “Let’s hear this man out.” Turning to the intruder, he said, “Assuming that you are who you say you are, how can you prove that you really are from the future?”

The man pulled out something and handed it to the President. “It’s a fifty dollar bill,” observed the President.

“It’s worthless in my time. Look at the date,” said the intruder.

The President studied the bill closely. “It does appear to be from the future.”

“That proves nothing,” said the general. “Anyone could forge a date.” The President handed the bill back to the man.

“Okay then. Turn the TV to channel seven. The lottery numbers will be 57, 22, 39, 84 and 60.”

The general turned on the television and set it to the appropriate channel. “And now it is time for the lottery,” the announcer was saying. “Who will be a winner today? The first number is 57. Now watch the numbers. Studies show that standing on your head and saying, ‘Nahoowalog’ may increase your chances of winning. Try it out! The next number is 22…” He went on to draw the rest of the numbers that the intruder predicted.

The general looked a little unsettled. “That still doesn’t prove that you can travel in time. The lottery can be rigged. Or maybe you’re drugging us with some sort of advanced hallucinogen.”

“Well, I have one last thing to show you. Do either of you have a small palm sized object that I could borrow?” The President handed him a button that had fallen off his shirt earlier that day. “This will work nicely.” He pulled out a small metal disk seemingly from nowhere and he set it on the table. He set the button on it, and then flipped a switch on the side of the disk. A humming sound came from the disk and the button rose several inches into the air. It hovered there, rotating slightly. “Ha ha!” he exclaimed, clearly proud of himself.

The President reached out and grabbed his button from midair and put it back in his pocket. “I’m satisfied. What is your purpose for coming here?” The general shot an accusatory glance at the President.

“I come to stop the devastating war that is about to take place,” said the man “The decision made today is a pivotal moment. It could avert a catastrophe, or cause one.”

“We know that, but what do we do?” said the President.

“Disband Project Lincoln. Just sit this one out. Any offensive action will start a war of mass destruction.”

The President turned to the general. “That’s exactly what I was saying earlier.” The general just grunted.

“The risks of time travel are great. Know that I only came because it is of utmost importance.”

“We will heed your warning.” said the President.

“I must go now. Don’t tell anyone about this. A leak about time travel could be even worse than the war we just avoided.” His body started to glow. It got brighter and brighter as it shrunk into a small ball of light. Then it was gone.

“You don’t actually believe him?” said the general. “He could be a spy trying to deceive us.”

“You’re right. Something just seemed wrong about him. It must be a trap. And besides, how could we ever develop such a terrible fashion sense? Humankind is smarter than that.”

“So it’s decided. We must activate Project Lincoln.”

-

*----- * -----*
-
The time traveler stepped out of his lab and onto the street. He got onto the maglev and rode home. He lived on the moon like most people during his time. It was the only safe place left before he fixed everything.

He got home and plopped onto his bed, satisfied with himself. He just saved the planet! Who else could say that? But something didn’t seem quite right. It was nagging at the back of his mind and keeping him from falling asleep. There was no question that Earth was saved, but his body didn’t believe him.

He went out on his deck and pointed his telescope towards Earth. Surely it would look like it did in the archives before the war – a beautiful disk of blue and green and white, floating in the heavens. A sight that no one had seen for a hundred years would now be his to behold.

He looked into the telescope. Shocked, he pulled away. This couldn’t be happening. Everything should have been fixed! Was it all his fault? Did he doom a world to destruction in trying to save it?

He rose his fist to the sky and yelled, “Nooooooooooo!”

Epic Poem #2

Flight

The flights of eagles, ravens and crows
Take them over the mountains high.
Their paths take them to magical places
Where we can never go, though we try.

Oh, to fly as the Eagles do!
Oh, to forever be free!
This unreachable goal takes our hearts
And tells us who we can be.

The mountains reach unthinkable heights -
A barrier to all mankind.
The horses and bears can't reach their peaks -
Only the birds in the sky.

Oh, to fly as the Eagles do!
Oh, to forever be free!
This unreachable goal takes our hearts
And tells us who we can be.

The humans are stuck here on the ground
Forever looking to the skies.
They always desire to reach new heights,
But they only can through their cries.

Oh, to fly as the Eagles do!
Oh, to forever be free!
This unreachable goal takes our hearts,
Yet it never can be.

Joseph Lawrence

The Birth of Pac-Man

Oh Yeah!

Watch Out for Werewolves

The moon is coming. What will you do?

Name of the Month

Chase Darkness

Yeah, it's amazing. Not only is it the coolest name ever, it would make an awesome occupation. I'm totally going to name my next Knights of the Old Republic character Chase Darkness. Then I will be unstoppable.

Chase Darkness.

Chassse Darknesssssss.

(See D&C 50:25)

"Glorious" Marysville

Here is the site of the new high school. It is going to be called Getchell High School (probably because it's on Getchell Road). But according to Google Maps, that road is actually called Marysville-Pilchuck Road. So why aren't they naming the new school Marysville-Pilchuck High School? I guess that wouldn't work too well since we already have one named that. They could always name it MP 2.0. That would be the best!

The Moon (Obviously)

I took this with my mom's Canon PowerShot SX100 IS at 10x optical zoom. It turned out quite nice.

(Take that Polaris B!)

An Oppression of Time

On Sunday, the hour from 2:00 to 3:00 AM didn't exist. It was stolen from us and sent to the future. People like to say that this gives us more time. How can taking away time give us more time?

When I moved the clock forward and obliterated an hour of time, I could almost hear a deep, majestic voice from the cosmos say, "You'll thank me later." Yeah right.

I can't stand it to see my body go through this pain. I have to look myself in the eyes and tell my tired body that it can't wake up when it's used to. It's schedule is just plain disrupted.

Time is one of the few things we have that is constant. But even that has been stripped from us. How can we survive when time itself changes? No more will I put up with this. No more can I sit by while this theft is taking place. The time for action has come! Join with me, and together we will rebel against this atrocity and retrieve what was wrongly taken from us!

On the other hand, it snowed Sunday night, making school start 2 hours late on Monday. I was able to sleep in, and it was such a sweet thing. After all that ranting and raving, a way was made to help me get through this trial. I was understood when I thought that no one did. So maybe the fault is in the government, not anything else.

The Economy is Disintegrationing!

This is a graph of the value of the Dow Jones stock over the last 5 years. See that downward trend? That's bad. We should probably do something about it.

I had a great idea to save the stock market! The government should give everyone $500, but instead of giving it to us in cash, they should give it to us in stock. With 150 billion dollars invested in the market, prices will go way up.

On the other hand, everyone would sell as soon as the stock went up. This could start a vicious cycle of swings from high to low that would be worse than my mom on sugar. Uh-oh! (Sorry mom. :D)

Vowels and Rainbows

Quick, which one of these letters is a vowel?

1. Y

2. B

3. W

If you guessed B, you're wrong. You might have been thinking of A. Just because B comes after A doesn't make it a vowel too.

If you guessed W, you're wrong. You might have been thinking of U. Unfortunately, two vowels do not make a vowel.

If you guessed Y, you're right! Just because Y isn't always a vowel doesn't mean that it's not a vowel at all. That's like someone saying that he doesn't like pizza if he doesn't like anchovies.

Y is often ignored as a vowel because it's overshadowed by the "pure" vowels. That's not fair. Y is a vowel too!

Another thing that gets ignored unfairly is indigo as a color of the rainbow. Haven't you heard of ROYGBIV? What do you think the I stands for? Look at the rainbow. There's two blues in there, blue and indigo.

Originally, it was considered that there was only 5 colors in the rainbow. Orange and indigo weren't included. Then Newton decided to split the rainbow into 7 colors. So if we consider orange a color of the rainbow, why do we ignore indigo?

And what about violet? People use it interchangeably with purple all the time. Violet is a pure wavelength of about 400 nanometers. Purple is a mixture of red and blue wavelengths used to close the gap in the color wheel. That's a big difference!

I don't know why, but I can't stand it when certain objects don't get the rights that they deserve. I guess that I'm the self appointed caretaker of rats and dust bunnies and vegetables and ignored vowels and colors. I am a strong supporter of equality for all inanimate objects. So remember, indigo is a color too.

Anyone can be a poet! (To varying degrees of proficiency)

I'm pretty good at a lot of the things that I do, so I decided to make a list of things that I'm not good at.

Basketball
Jump rope
Swimming
Pogo sticking
Skateboarding
Gargling
Poetry

Now poetry is an interesting subject. I'm not the best writer, and my poetry is always very cheesy. So I decided to write a poem just to see how bad it would be. Here is the result.


The Sky - Joseph Lawrence

The sun rises in the east
Giving tribute to the skies.

The birds fly up toward the air
Screeching out their cries.

The people down on the ground
Try to decide who to be.

But the answers never come because
Only by looking up we can see.


This turned out so hilariously cheesy that I decided to do a dramatic reading of the poem with background music. You can listen to it below.

Word of the Day: Insatiable

Insatiable: incapable of being satisfied.

When I was eating dinner tonight, I said that "my hunger was insatiable." Then I realized that I had no idea what that word meant and so I looked it up. It fit perfectly!

I ate three huge helpings of our seafood and noodle meal, but after an hour of eating I was still hungry. I must be going through another growth spurt. Pretty soon people who want to climb the tallest mountain will have to climb something other than Mt. Everest.

Joke of the Day

Two atoms were walking down the street. One tripped and fell. The other one asked, "Are you alright?"
The first atom answered, "I think I just lost an electron."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm positive!"

Dude!

This is my avatar for my XBox Live account. I think that he looks pretty cool. He seems to say, "Wazzup dude?" I want to look just like him someday.

Hymn of the Week

Today I opened the Hymn Book to a random page and I saw the hymn, "Did You Think to Pray?" I thought that there was probably something that I was supposed to learn from it because the Sunday School lesson that we just had was about prayer. As the hymn was going through my head, these lines caught my attention.

Oh, how praying rests the weary!
Prayer will change the night to day.

These lines seem to contradict each other. How can someone rest if it's always day? When I'm trying to sleep, the last thing I want is for the night to suddenly change to day. Every morning when my alarm clock goes off, I spend a few seconds asking the universe, "Why are you so mean to me?" and then I grunt and get out of bed. If anything, the nights need to be longer because I feel quite weary sometimes. I need my rest!

Logic Check: Vegetarians

I have never understood why someone would want to be a vegetarian. So I created a list of some reasons that I've heard.

1. Animals are alive.

2. Animals have feelings.

3. Animals are unhealthy.

4. Plants are made for people to eat.

5. Animals have faces.

These are all valid reasons, but they all apply to plants too. If a person follows these rules, then he can't eat anything. Let's examine each of the reasons.

1. Plants are alive too.

2. Just because animals move more than plants doesn't mean that they have more feelings. According to this logic, people in comas don't have feelings because they don't move. Is it okay to eat them? By being a vegetarian a person is insulting these people! I'm appalled.

3. Everything is unhealthy in some way. Some meat has a lot of fat, but you have to get the protein from somewhere, and milk and eggs have much more fat than lean turkey meat.

4. Most animals wouldn't be born if we didn't eat them. What else do you think we would use cows and pigs for? Purfume?

5. Plants have faces too!

If you're not going to eat animals, then for the same reasons you can't eat plants. So if you're contemplating a major dietary alteration, please stop and think about it logically.

I'm not trying to be rude and I hope that I don't offend anyone. I actually respect vegetarians for the devotion that they give to their ideals. It just seems a little misplaced to me.

So remember; in addition to animals and people in comas, plants have feelings too.

Color of the Week: Tangerine

Things that are this color:

Tangerines
Crayons




Why make a crayon for a color if only one object in the world is that color? This makes no sense. If anyone can think of anything else that is tangerine, please leave a comment about it.

Martian Invasion Postponed

For some reason, Ned the Martian isn't acting as nefarious as I had expected. I guess that he's waiting until next year to call his army to invade the Earth. For now, he must have absorbed into the earth to act has a homing beacon to his people. So get ready: the martians are coming!